


Dad's Day

by Candy_A



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Crossovers: Starsky & Hutch, Holiday: Other, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 01:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/792362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candy_A/pseuds/Candy_A
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair celebrate Father's Day.<br/>This story is a sequel to Outside Influences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dad's Day

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the same universe as the Starsky & Hutch crossover, "Outside Influences", and contains a SPOILER for one plot element of that story. This is a crossover between "The Sentinel" and "Starsky & Hutch".
> 
> Warnings: William Ellison, flashy ties and headhunters...other than that, I think it's safe for most readers. See slight SPOILER warning in "Notes".

## Dad's Day

by Candy Apple

Author's disclaimer: Pet Fly owns the guys and The Sentinel. No money being made. Just for fun.

* * *

Dad's Day  
by Candy Apple 

"You get a hold of Starsky yet?" Jim asked as he came downstairs, straightening his tie. 

"No luck yet. I keep getting the answering machine." Blair frowned at the phone. "I really wanted to talk to him today. I mean, I never had any reason to celebrate Father's Day before, and now I can't even get a hold of him." 

"You sent a card and a gift--I'm sure you'll hear from him later. We better get moving. We have to pick my dad up and our reservation for dinner is in a half hour." 

"Yeah, I guess." Blair smiled then. "I'm really glad we're getting together with your dad today. He seems to be really trying, you know, to get used to us." 

"He took it better than I expected," Jim responded, picking up his keys. "I was pretty stunned when he suggested dinner at the country club with the two of us for today. That's where all his friends hang out." He paused then, falling silent and listening. 

"What?" 

"Someone's coming." Then Jim smiled a little, and backed away from the door. "I think you should answer this one." 

"Me?" Blair frowned, then waited for the knock. Glancing at Jim with some confusion, he opened the door, and his jaw dropped as he gaped at their visitor. 

"It's good to see you too, kiddo," Starsky greeted, laughing and meeting Blair halfway for a hug. Dressed in a light gray suit and white shirt, Starsky also wore the brightly colored paint-splash design tie Blair had sent him as part of his Father's Day package, which had also included a few different books he'd picked out he thought would appeal to his father's somewhat eclectic taste in reading. "I'll have you know this tie made its first court appearance Thursday," he said, smiling and waving the end of it at Blair. 

"I don't believe you're here! I've been calling you all morning! Where's Hutch?" 

"He has to be in court first thing tomorrow morning, so he decided to let me make this trip solo. But hey, this is my first official Father's Day, so I kind of figured I'd come see the reason I got the title." 

"Maybe Starsky would like to come all the way into the apartment, Chief," Jim said, chuckling a little. 

"Oh, man, I'm sorry." Blair backed up and let his father in while Jim closed the door behind him. 

"You guys look like you're on your way out," Starsky said, setting down his travel bag. "If you've got plans, please go ahead. Blair and I can visit when you get back." 

"If you're up for dinner at the country club and meeting Jim's dad, you could come with us. It'd really be great if we could both have our dads there," Blair said, looking hopefully at Starsky, as if there were any real danger he wouldn't get his wish. 

"Sounds great. I'm starved." 

"Dad claims they have a great buffet," Jim responded. "We better get moving." 

"I'll put your bag in the guest room," Blair said, grabbing Starsky's bag and heading into what doubled as his home office and a guest bedroom now. 

"Thanks for coming," Jim said to Starsky, who just smiled. 

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." 

"You wore that tie to court?" Jim asked, smirking a little. 

"You bet I did. Told everybody it was a Father's Day present from my kid," he said proudly as Blair rejoined them, waving his camera. 

"I want pictures," he said, smiling. 

"Me too," Starsky chimed in right away. "Need some new braggin' rights. Everybody's seen the other ones I've got." 

"I'd hate to think what you would've been like with baby pictures," Jim added, chortling. 

"Oh, I got some'a those too--I called Naomi, and she made prints for me." 

"Oh, man, I don't believe this." Blair laughed as they headed out to the truck. "You've been showing your friends my _baby_ pictures?" 

"And your school pictures and your graduation pictures..." 

"Argh," Blair groaned, covering his face with one hand before climbing in to take the middle seat in the pick up. 

"Sorry, kid. I didn't get to embarrass you when you were little, so I gotta do it all at once now." Starsky nudged Blair with his shoulder as he got in the truck. "The girls in the chief's office got a real kick out of that blue blanket picture," he needled, referring to Blair's lone naked baby picture. 

"Oh, no." Blair covered his face again, turning a nice shade of pink. Starsky had mercy on him. 

"I'm kidding. I only showed the baby pictures to Hutch. Well, and Minnie--she's an old friend, works in Records now, and well, there's Huggy, and then Dobey and Edith had us over for dinner a couple weeks ago...okay, so not _too many_ people." 

"I'm surprised you didn't pass out cigars," Blair lamented as he leaned back in the seat. 

"I thought about it, but Hutch thought it was a little over the top. Hey, look, you're sure I'm not intruding on somethin' here with your father, Jim?" 

"Not at all. It was just the three of us initially--Steven's in London right now on business. I think having Blair's father here as well is a good way to celebrate...and diffuse things a little." 

"Diffuse how?" Starsky frowned. 

"This is the first time we've gotten together with Jim's dad since Jim told him we were...you know... _together_." 

"Ah." Starsky nodded knowingly. "Figure he can't rip any limbs off in front of a stranger, huh?" 

"I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind," Jim said. "He took the news better than I expected, and this whole suggestion to go to his club really stunned me. We invited him for Father's Day, and he suggested the club." 

"Are you sure he knew I was coming along?" Blair asked. 

"He made reservations for three people, Chief. He knows. Relax." 

"Look, Dad, if he says something snotty...just promise me you're not going to get all pissed off, okay?" Blair turned to look at Starsky. 

"I promise I won't create a scene," Starsky responded. After a long pause, he whispered to Blair, obviously under the delusion that Jim couldn't hear a whisper, "I'll keep my voice down when I tell him to go fuck himself." 

"Dad," Blair admonished. 

"I'll be all sunshine and light. Promise," he said, grinning a little deviously. 

* * *

With four people in the group instead of three, William Ellison readily offered to take his Cadillac. Truth be told, he appeared extremely relieved to be slipping behind the wheel of his late model Sedan deVille instead of hopping up into Jim's '69 pick-up truck. 

"I'm glad to finally have a chance to meet you," Bill said as he backed out of the driveway, his eyes briefly on Starsky in the rearview mirror. "Jimmy told me about working with you and your partner, and about you being Blair's father. Must have been quite a surprise to find out that way--working a case." 

"I was pretty stunned," Starsky said, smiling. "In a good way." 

"You and your partner--Hutchinson, isn't it?--you're both cops?" 

"Guilty as charged, Starsky responded. "We've been on the force for close to thirty years now, but in the last eight or nine, we've been working more high profile cases, and working with the task force that brought us up here in the first place." Starsky paused. "Jim hasn't told me much about what you do. I know it was something in business..." 

"I'm mostly retired now. I still hold the seat as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Pacific Coast Plastics. I retired as CEO there about four years ago. I've done a little of everything from sales to marketing to personnel management...basically working my way up the ladder into anything that was an upward move." 

"So you're retired but...not." 

"More or less," Bill responded, chuckling. "I think I'll be truly retired when they carry me out feet-first. I can only sit on my ass in the house or play golf with a bunch of whining arthritic old farts so long before I feel my brain atrophying in my skull." 

"I'm gonna have you talk to Hutch about retirement," Starsky said, laughing. "I think you and I have a pretty similar view of the prospect." 

* * *

The buffet dinner at the country club was as lavish as Bill had promised it would be, and the four men ate heartily, pausing occasionally to exchange a few niceties with friends of the elder Ellison's who stopped to say hello. Blair took great pride in being able to introduce his father, and both Jim and Blair let Bill off the hook with a simple introduction of Blair as Jim's "partner". Knowing Bill's son was a cop, no awkward questions were raised, and the "partner" title was an accurate one in every sense of the word. Blair got their server to snap a few pictures of the whole group, and after an obscene raid of the dessert table, they adjourned to the car to head back to the Ellison house. 

"Why don't you all come in for a while? I have an exceptional after dinner liqueur I think would finish things off perfectly." 

"Sounds great, Dad," Jim agreed, and they made their way into the house, relaxing in the living room as Bill went to fetch his prized liqueur out of the cabinet. "Excuse me a minute. I left something in the truck." Jim headed outside, then quickly returned, carrying a wrapped package. "Happy Father's Day, Dad," he said, handing the box to Bill as he accepted a small glass holding the raspberry liqueur. 

"Thank you, Jimmy. You didn't have to do that--dinner was more than enough." He sat on the couch with the package, and Jim sat at the opposite end of it, Blair and Starsky in matching chairs across from them. 

"It's from both of us," Jim clarified as his father tore off the wrapping paper and opened the box. In it was an ivory colored golf shirt with a very attractive crest on the pocket, bearing Rainier University's insignia. 

"I thought since you were a donor there, and uh, you were on that fund raising committee last year...maybe you'd like something...with the logo," Blair said, obviously nervous at how something with the Rainier insignia would be received, considering it was more strongly affiliated with Blair than Jim. Blair shot a nervous look at Starsky, who just winked at him and smiled a little. 

"Blair and I picked it out together," Jim added, nervous himself now waiting for a response. 

"It's great. Thank you both." He pulled it out of the box and held it up. "Actually, the President handed out golf hats to the committee members after the fund raising campaign was over, so now I've got a matched set." 

"Just be thankful he didn't pick out a tie for you," Jim needled. 

"Don't make fun of my tie," Starsky protested with mock indignance, his voice rising slightly. "Just for the record, I didn't hear anybody else at our table get a compliment on his tie," he added smugly, referring to the fuss one of Bill's friend's wives had made over the tie in question. An artist, she had been drawn to the unusual design and the bright colors, and had loved the decadence of wearing it with such a sedate suit to such a conservative club. "Now the headhunter book...that was creepy." 

"You didn't like that?" Blair asked, a little disappointed. 

"I loved it. Sat up til three in the morning finishing it. Only problem is I started readin' it to Hutch and gave him nightmares. I haven't heard the end of that yet. Did you actually _meet_ those people?" 

" _Very_ briefly." 

"And they had the heads up on those--" 

"Uh, yeah, they did, but they were pretty much skulls that I saw," Blair said, chuckling and nodding, glancing uneasily at the expressions on Jim's and Bill's faces. "Maybe we should talk more about that later." 

"Oh, right," Starsky said, nodding. "That other book on crime and punishment in pre-civilized tribes? Now _that_ was a good one. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, though, 'cause Hutch read the jacket and commandeered it for himself. Payback for the headhunter thing," Starsky added, laughing. 

The rest of their visit was pleasant, and by the time they left the Ellison house, Jim and Blair felt much more at ease around Jim's father. The evening was spent munching on junk food, watching a game on TV, and finally Starsky and Blair sitting up late into the night exchanging bizarre, little known facts on remote tribes. What Blair hadn't learned from his travels or read in a book, Starsky had managed to find in some bizarre trivia book. Jim had finally bowed out and gone to bed, though he still could hear the animated voices downstairs--Starsky swearing the voracity of some absurdity he was trying to sell Blair, and Blair furiously making notes on it. It was a given that a trip to the library and some prolonged 'net time were in Blair's future, verifying or debunking Starsky's stories. Jim was convinced that his lover's father was having a bit of fun watching his academic son's reaction to what were outlandish, colorful--and extremely unlikely-- legends. 

Blair finally came up to bed in the small hours of the morning, with Starsky settled into the guest room. 

"Sorry we were up so late," Blair said, sliding into bed with Jim and cuddling into the waiting arms. "Did you get any sleep at all up here?" 

"I dozed off somewhere between that tribe who ate their political candidate and the definition of a 'geek'." 

"Oh, man, he was _so_ jerking my chain." Blair chuckled. 

"I think you met your match there, Darwin. He can tell a weirder story than you can with a straight face. I guess we know who had the obfuscation genes in the family tree." Jim was quiet a minute. "We had a good Father's Day, huh?" 

"Yeah. Us. A good Father's Day. Who'd'a thought?" Blair grinned, squeezing Jim a little. 

"Things went well with my dad, I thought." 

"Great. I think we're gonna be okay there." Blair was quiet a minute. "I'm so glad my dad showed up today." 

"I'm glad he showed up, period. He's a pretty decent dad, huh?" Jim asked, smiling at his lover. 

"The best." 

"I've done a lot of thinking in the last few months. He's by no means perfect, but I'm pretty glad my dad's still around too." 

"He's trying really hard." 

"I know he is. So were you. Thanks." 

"I want him to accept us, and for you guys to have a good relationship. You missed out on a lot of it when you were younger." 

"We better catch a few Z's before we have to hit the deck tomorrow morning." 

"We're going to breakfast with my dad before his plane leaves--is that okay?" 

"Sounds great. We'll take him to Gertie's." 

"Oh, man. Cholesterol Cafe." 

"He'll love it." 

"I don't doubt it," Blair said, chortling. "One of you I can handle, two of you I've got no prayer of out-voting." 

"Glad you see the light, Chief." Jim leaned down for a long kiss. "Goodnight, sweetheart." 

"'night, lover." After a contented sigh, Blair said, "Happy Father's Day, Jim." 

"Happy Father's Day to you too, Chief." 

End 


End file.
